A Curious Switch–Mt 5:11-12

‘Blessed are those,’ ‘blessed are they,’ ‘blessed are the ones’… This is how 8/9 beatitudes begin. But on the tenth one he switches to a different pronoun.

“Blessed are you…”

He then begins to expand one more time on the blessing of suffering. Perhaps it was here that he was turning to his beloved disciples and preparing them for the terrible deaths they would die. Perhaps he was encouraging them and reiterating that suffering was a blessing, not a curse. But whatever his intentions, it is clear that this point was an important one.